John Wesley Hardin
John Wesley Hardin was a post Civil War outlaw and killer background Born May 26, 1853 in Bonham Texas the son of the Rev Joseph "Gip" Hardin and Mary Elizabeth Dixson the second of ten children. His brother Joseph "Gip" Hardin was three years older. The Hardins were Southerns and politcially promient. His great-grandfather was North Carolina provincial Congressman Colonel Joseph Hardin the father of Congressman Martin D. Hardin of Ky and grandfather of Congressman John J. Hardin; relataives included Congressman Benjamin Hardin and Colonel John Hardin of Virgina 1861 Introduction to violence In 1861 according to his own account Hardin's first exposure to violance came when a man named Turner Evans was stabbed by a John Rauff. Evans died on his injuries and Evans spent a few years in jail. Hardin later wrote '..Readers you see what drink and passion will do. If you wish to be successful in life, be temperate and control your passions; if you don't ruin and death is the result." In view of how Hardin's life would end, this was an unintentional irony on his part. In 1862 at the age of nine Hardin tried to run off and join the Rebel army. 1867-1869 In 1867 a schoolmate named Charles Sloter claimed Hardin wrote a bit of doggeral about a local girl on a schollboard. Hardin denied doing so and Sloter tried to stab Hardin with a knife. Hardin in his turn stabbed Sloter with his own knife and was almost expelled from school. In 1868 at Moscow Texas Hardin enguaged in a wrestling match with a ex slave named Mage who had belonged to Judge Holshoven-a brother of Hardin's aunt. Hardin beat Mage and scratched his face. Hardin later claimed that he meet Mage near a creekbed and after the man shook a stick at him and cursed him, Hardin shot and mortally wounded Mage with a pistol. When three yankee soldiers tried to arrest Hardin, he ambushed them at crossing at Hickory Creek, Logallis Prairie-now Nogalus Texas {About 25 miles north of Sumpter, Texas} with a shotgun and pistol and killed all three. Locals hid the victiums in the creekbed about 100 yards from the ambush. Although offical records of the Fifth Military District for Texas and Louisiana do not confirm Hardin's account of these murders, there is some confirmation in that about eighty years later human bones were found in the creekbed; however the identity of the victiums are unknown. In 1869 Hardin fled to Pisguah, Navarro County Texas and teamed up with an outlaw named Frank Polk. Polk had killed a man named Tom Brady and Union soldiers sent out from Corsicana Texas to arrest both Polk and Hardin. Hardin escaped but Polk was captured; he was later killed September 23, 1878 after killing Wortham Texas City marshal Charles Powers. In Pisguah Hardin taught school for three months but deceided to learn the cattle trade and playing poker. Once to win a bet of a bottle of whiskey-which he collected years later-he shot a mans eye with a pistol. 1870-1871 On January 5, 1870 in Towash, Hill County Texas hardin was playing cards with Benjamin-not Jim-Bradley and a Judge Moore who held Hardin's stakes in the game. The outcome was that Hardin shot and killed Bradley and Moore "vanished". {An 1877 account claims Hardin admitted killing two men in Hill County}. On January 20, 1870 in Horn Hill, Limestone County Texas Hardin killed a circus rastabout and about a week later killed a man in Kosse Texas. On January 9, 1871 in Harrison County Texas Hardin was arrested by Constable E.T. Stakes and 12 citizens on four murder charges and one horse theft charge. He was inprisioned in Marshall Texas where he secretly purchased a pistol and a overcoat. Hardin was being taken back to Waco Texas on a charge of having killed Waco Town Marshal Laban John Hoffman January 6, 1871 {a charge he denied committing} in the company of Captain Stakes and Texas State Policeman John Smalley. On Janaury 20, 1871 when Stakes was foraging, Hardin killed Smalley and escaped. He later claimed to have been arrested by three men named Smith; Jones and Davis-but escaped again after killing them in Bell County Texas. {This last triple killing is not confirmed} 1872-1874 In June 1872, at Willis, Texas, Hardin claimed that some men tried to arrest him for carrying a pistol "...but they got the contents instead."; pp. 63-65. In August 1872 Hardin was wounded by a shotgun blast in a Trinity, Texas gambling dispute by Phil Sublett, after he had lost money to Hardin in a poker game. In September 1872 Hardin surrendered to Sheriff Reagan of Cherokee County, Texas, but escaped in October 1872. On November 19, 1872, Hardin, despite a guard of six men, mysteriously escaped from the sheriff of Gonzales County, Texas. A reward of $100.00 was offered for his re-capture Sutton-Taylor Feud During this period occured the Sutton-Taylor feud; Hardin was related and allied to the Taylor family. On May 15, 1873, Jim Cox and Jake Christman were killed by the Taylor faction at Tomlinson Creek. Hardin, having by then recovered from the injuries from Sublett's attack, admitted that there were reports that he had led the fights in which these men were killed, but would neither confirm nor deny his involvement: "...but as I have never pleaded to that case, I will at this time have little to say."; p. 81 In Cuero, Texas in May 1873, Hardin killed Dewitt County Deputy Sheriff, J.B. Morgan, who served under County Sheriff, Jack Helms (a former captain in the Texas State Police). Both were Sutton family allies.; p. 79 ; p. 30. On May 17, 1873 in Albureque texas, Hardin and Jim Taylor killed Dewitt County Texas Sherriff Jack Helms The feud culminated with Jim and Bill Taylor gunning down Billy Sutton and Gabriel Slaughter as they waited on a steamboat platform, in Indianola, Texas on March 11, 1874, as the two were planning to leave the area for good. Hardin admitted in his biography that he and his brother Joseph had been involved along with both Taylors in Sutton's killing page|86-87. In revenge the Suttons lynched three members of the Taylor fraction on June 22, 1874 in Dewitt County Texas-John Alfred "Kute" Tuggle; Rufus P. "Scrap" Taylor and James White. On May 1, 1874, while he was in Gainesville, Florida.Hardin (under the alias of James W Swain} calimed that he had knocked a black man down and shot another during a disturbance outside the Alachua County jail. A black prisoner named "Eli" - who was held on a charge of attempted assault of a white woman - was killed when the jail was burned down by a mob. Hardin claimed to have been part of the mob as well as the county coroner, who afterward rendered a verdict that "Eli" had died after setting fire to the jail himself; "Hardin Autobiography"; p.110. On May 26, 1874 in Commanche Texas, Hardin shot and killed Brown County Deputy Sherriff Charles Webb a former Texas Ranger. Two of Hardin's accomplices in the shooting were a cousin, Bud Dixson, and Jim Taylor.; p. 92. Shortly afterward, Hardin and a new companion, Mac Young, were suspected of horse thievery, and were pursued by a posse near Bellville, in Austin County, Texas. Hardin pulled his pistols on Austin County Sheriff, Gustave Langhammer, but did not shoot him, while separately Young was arrested and fined $100 for carrying a pistol.; pp. 107-108. 1874-1877 On January 20, 1875 a reward of $4,000 was authorized by the Texas legislature for Hardin's arrest. On August 24, 1877 in Pensacola Florida Hardin aka "James W. Swain" was captured on a train by Texas Rangers. A companion of Hardin who fired on the rangers was killed. Reportably just before his capture, two ex-slaves of his father "Jake" Menzel and Robert Borup, had tried to capture Hardin in Gainsville, Florida. Hardin killed one and blinded the other. The only crime Hardin was tried for was Deputy Sherriff Webb for which he was sentenced to the Hunstville State Prison for 25 years. 1894-1895 Hardin was released February 17, 1894 and pardoned March 16, 1894. On July 21, 1894 Hardin passed the Texas bar exam to become a lawyer. A account from 1900 claims Hardin committed his last murder after his release when to win a $5.00 bet he knocked a mexican off a box with a pistol shot. By this time he was a widower his wife Jane Bowen having died November 6, 1892 and he remarried again on January 9, 1895 to Carolyn "Callie" Lewis age 15; however they soon seperated. In July 1895 Hardin was fined $25.00 for gaming after using a pistol to get back $100.00 he had lost at El Paso Texas "Gem Saloon" some weeks before; his pistol was confiscated. In August 1895 El Paso Policeman John Selman Jr arrested Hardin's girlfriend M'Rose for branishing a gun in public. Hardin argued with both Selman and his father El Paso Constable John Selman Sr. After an arguement with the senior Selman August 19, 1895 Hardin went to shoot dice at the Acme Saloon. Selman Sr came up behind Hardin and shot him in the back of the head and through the chest. Hardin's last words were "Four Sixes to beat"; he is buried in El Paso Concorida Cemetery as is John Selman Sr who was killed in a gunfight with US Deputy marshall George Scarborough April 6, 1896. Among his papers Hardin's son found and published his father's autobiography "The Life of John Wesley Hardin written by Himself."